IT'S A LIE!

Radio Record, 3 June 1938, Page 13

IT'S A LIE!

How A New Zealand Film Producer Made Stanley Lupino Look Small

HOTOGRAPHIC tricks can make short film stars tall, fat ones thinner, old ones younger, and ugly ones a little less ugly. But have you ever thought just how far these photographic tricks can’take you? Do you know how the camera can be made to lie? You remember "King Kong"-how the giant figures came to life, how aeroplanes circling the tallest building were caugh: and crushed by the monster sitting straddle-legged on the top? All camera tricks. The camera, helped by mirrors and a few models, told you all those entertainivg lies,

Take jungle scenes. The bare-skinned hero fights off the lions and rescues the beautiful damsel in distress. He leaps from the ground on to the branch of a tree one fraction of time before the charging lion reaches him. With the frightened heroine in his arms he runs across the open ground with lions so close that their hot breath warms his skin. More camera lies-but very convincing and entertaining ones,

T who haye worked for so long in studios that I know all the tricks still get a kick out of watching the "made-up" camera thrills. They are probably far more convineing than if artists had really risked their lives "doing it dangerously." But the tricks are sometimes used, not to thrill you sv much as to entertain you, by supplying a little fantasy in an otherwise simple and direct picture. "It’s Impossible!" FEW years ago I left Hollywood at the end of my coutract, aud returned to produce again in London for Carl Hyson's Productions. I walked into the office one morning aud met Carl Hyson looking glum. Usually he is the most cheery person ove could meet. "ITello, Carl! What’s up?’ I asked.

"JUST had a ring from Stanley Lupino," he replied. "He wants us to supply the girls, the costume ideas, and-get this-he insists on having the girls all in some new type of dancing scene. He’s going to dance with Sally Grey at the same time, and he wants to make this the love scene where he proposes to Sally." "What? it’s impossible!" I blurted out. "You can’t do it-pictures aren’t made that way." ‘Forget it, son," said Carl. "Remember the old saying: He who pays the piper calls the tune? ‘Well, as you probably know, Stanley pays for the production of his starring pictures."

That left me just as depressed as Carl was: It would be a nice job if we could do it as Stanley Lupino wanted, and a well paid one. But could we? The Idea

I WENT down to the Studio, where Stanley Lupino and Sally Grey were doing some of the early sequences. I watched them for a while wondering why

this middle-aged Iman snoulid be such a popular star, and why the musical-comedy loving London publie adored him, Hie was shorter than Sally Grey (who is a fresh and beautiful young blonde), but somehow he dominated every scene in which he appeared. My thoughts, wandering, pictured him even smaller than his five feet four, then taller, a giant Stanley six feet four. Suddenly, it came to me. Stanley, a master of burlesque, could carry off the idea I had thought of. EN the script Stanley and Sally Grey were supposed to be in a restaurant having dinner. He wanted to propose to her, but there were too many people and too much noise, In this restaurant setting, also, we were expected to produce the cabaret sequence, (Continued on page 50.}

The camera never lies, we ave told. It’s a lie! The film camera con make you believe things on the sereen that you know are impossible. in this article PHILIP CROSS, young New Zealander whose adventurous career includes movie production work for British and American studios, tells how he once achieved some remarkable trick effects in a Stenley Lupino picture.

It'$ A Liel

CAMERA TRICKERY

(Continued from page 13.) Stanley wanted arranged ‘so that he could sing his love song to Sally while dancing with her. By camera lies, I thought we could do it. On the table at which Sally and Stanley sat was a bowl of fruit, a wine list and a birthday cake. My idea was that the figures round the cake could be girls, the figures supporting the fruit bowl a team of dancers, and the figures in the picture of the front of the wine list could also be dancing girls. We would have a close up shot of Sally and Stanley at the table. Stanley would say: "Sally, darling, if only this crowd wasn’t here. If only we were alone." And she replies: "I wish we were like those figures on the fruit bowl. I wish we could come to lite, and nobody would know." « Then, we’d make those tiny figures come to life. They would dance on the table with Sally and Stanley looking at them; then they, too, would grow tiny and join the figures. Stanley would sing his love song, dance with Sally and at the end, we would "cut back" to the two of them watching themselves dancing; just tiny little figures with the others. After that, back to the ordinary restaurant set with both of them at the table, obviously happy be cause he had told her he loved her. Briefly, it was making an impossible wish come true-quite a good idea in pictures. But how to do it? Just the same method as the "King Kong" idea, a Sehoeften set. }FIRST we made a tiny model of the bowl, cake, wine list, cigar, and ash-tray-in fact, everything on top of the table. We also made a large-sized set -a replica of the model, but so big that everything was in proportion when the girls formed themselves round the cake, and the dancers grouped themselves on the base of the fruit bowl. Then the model was reflected by mirrors into the camera. From that, the camera went to Sally and Stanley at the table. Next came the sequence of the tiny figures dancing, the lens being fitted in a different way, "like looking through the wrong end of a telescope." After that, there was a shot of Stanley and Sally jumping on to the table. Again we used the wrong end of the lens so that -everything was in miniature. Our greatest difficulty was to bring the tiny figures to lifesize. This we did by changing the lens round,. taking the camera a long way back, and making what is called a "dolly shot"-that is. bringing the camera slowly nearer and nearer,-at the same time changing the focus length of the lens. The rest was easy. The camera lied-certainly! But. it helped us out of a difficulty, pleased Stanley Lupino; and from the reception of the film the "lie" apparently also pleased a great many of.his fans.